The manufacturer from Desenzano, famous around the world for its chassis, as of the next season will race with its own KF engines.

In the past few days, rumours have been circulating in the paddock according which Maranello, the well-known manufacturer based near Desenzano (BS) in Italy, communicated that as of the next season, in occasion of the new engine homologations, will present its brand new engine.

Thus, it has to be assumed that Maranello, directed by Armando Filini with his business partners Giancarlo Giusti and Roberto Frasari, will race with the new Maranello engine: chassis manufacturer, and now also of engines. For this project, the management chose to use Maxter carter fusions. Maranello will make the other parts of the engine ex novo. Also, the logistics will be improved. The racing team (chassis) will be moved to a wing of the old Crg facility, which will shortly move in the new gigantic structure few hundred meters away. The engine production will be moved to the new Maranello facility near Maxter. KVS from the Czech Republic will have the responsibility of development and racing departments on track.

Maranello will also take advantage of this project in order to introduce its 125cc shifter engine (KZ) with the starter for hobby racing. According to rumours, the engine that is already being tested on test-bench (to test some components) will be tested on track already after the summer.

Several people have been working to encourage more participants to partake in the local club races at Plentong during the last few months.

We have seen the particpant numbers gradually improve and for the July 2009 race, the Plentong Club 2009 championship had its largest turnout of 20 participants.

In addition to the race regulars, we also saw the return of Permas veterans Ang KW, Sam Lee as well as Blake Monthgomery who came back from Sydney and joined us for this race on a borrowed kart. In addition, we had the participation of 3 enthusiats, Jasalin Tang, Kenneth Wong and Lee Jia Jie, to the series - this was in fact the first kart race for Kenneth and Jasalin.

Heat 1 was considerably well contested with close racing and lots of overtaking from the front through to the rear of the pack.

Conversely, Heat 2 was all about attrition and the points went to those who managed to stay out on the track for the duration of the race.

Whilst there were several race incidents, no serious injuries were sustained by any karter.

The videos this month comprise of a 20 minute video of Heat 1 (which captures 6 camera angles of all participants through 6 full laps of the race), a on-board camera video from the 2 Warm-Up laps till the driver crashed and finally a 10 minute video of Heat 2 (which captures a sizeable number of participants dropping out of the race after encoutering engine issues).

Following on from the successful use of the UniLogger from UniPro to monitor the clutches at the first round of the MSA British championship series it has been decided to use them at all future rounds.

Obviously there will be costs involved in this exercise and Super One is intending to purchase a unit for each competitor which is going to mean an investment of just short of £14,000. The Super One team are asking each driver to buy the fitting kit.

This is a small investment considering the overall cost and Super One feel that in the long run this will save drivers money by not having to buy new clutches for each round and in some cases each race.

All drivers have now agreed to this proposal. The regulation amendment is shown on the regulations page. All drivers now need to purchase the fitting kit via this order form.

And now all Rotax entrants have also agreed to use the Uniloggers to check for excessive clutch slip.

The regs applied will be as follows: “The engine clutch must be triggered at 3000 rpm maximum and make the kart with driver onboard move forward. The clutch must be in direct drive (and 100% engaged) at 6,500 rpm.”

Over the last several months, we have been operating out of our very own pit at the Plentong track.

Its been great to have all our karts under one roof, with our own toilet and a separate cozy room in which we have a monitor to hook up video feeds and to enjoy the cooling aircon.

The pit area stores all our karts, miscellaneous setup gear and sprays and solvents - a total of 6 karts can sit in each pit comfortably and this could increase up to twofold depending on how you stack the karts.

There are 8 pits, 4 in front and 4 behind.

3 pits (2 in front, 1 behind) have already been leased monthly from Louis - for more enquiries, please contact Louis at +60-12-7033-733 or louis@permasgokart.com

I’ve been wanting to go back and do more on-board videos since I first tried out the Vio POV when I made my first run on the Plentong track late last year.

I really didnt want to go back to mounting via helmet cam since it was just too messy for me (with cables coming off my helmet and to the recorder), and somewhere earlier this year I saw a couple of videos of a shifter driver mounting his on-board camera behind his radiator and seat - you still saw the road ahead but more importantly, you also saw the driver hand movements.

So with the idea in mind, we brought out the Vio POV and will be trying that unit with a new video recorder by AIM, known as the SmartyCam, in next week’s Plentong Club race. Here are photos of how we mounted the on-board cams for anyone who wants to ask their local workshop to manufacture a brace.

GP, a kart brand designed external but manufactured in CRG’s facility, is being imported into Singapore. The first chassis are expected in late July 2009. For more information, write to sales@singaporecars.com.sg